Sometimes… some crimes… go slippin’ through the cracks

One of the frustrating things about doing this (blogging) is that there’s only 5 blogging days in the week (4 if you consider Movie Friday) and I don’t like inundating you with blog posts. Maybe once I am able to build a larger reader base I’ll be able to get away with it, but I think one post every day is probably enough. Because a lot of my content comes from articles in the news, there are a lot of stories that I’d like to write about but don’t make the cut for whatever miscellaneous reason. To illustrate what I’m talking about, here is the stuff that didn’t make it into its own post this week.

I’ve talked recently about the unbelievable stupidity of trying to pass religious-based “morality laws” that outlaw homosexuality. First of all it’s not even “immoral”, and second you can’t legislate the way people are born. Of course, nobody has told that to Zimbabwe, who is now arresting gay rights activists on drummed-up pornography charges and “insulting President Robert Mugabe”. Hey Mugabe – you’re a moronic pig-fucker who still breast feeds and wears Rainbow Brite pyjamas to bed. Maybe we should start an “Everybody insult Robert Mugabe” day. All this while the White House and the House of Representatives are trying to abolish “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Ever get the feeling some places are moving in opposite directions? Well have no fear, because we’ve still got homophobic assholes here in Canada. Let’s all join hands!

I was joking when I said women shouldn’t vote. Apparently Rabbi Elyakim Levanon reads my blog and doesn’t have a sense of sarcasm. He’s told the female members of his community that voting is a man’s job. He wants to prevent a circumstance wherein women would have different votes from their husbands. Good thing there’s still someone out there promoting “traditional family values”. Sheesh.

Yeah, it still sucks to be a woman in a theocratic country. An imam in Mali suggested that maybe women shouldn’t be religiously and legally required to obey their husbands, and the cry went up. Mali, which is Muslim, ought not to be confused with Malawi, which is Christian. They’re both asshole countries ruled by religious stupidity, but it’s a different kind of religious stupidity so the differences abound. The joke of course being that it doesn’t matter what god you believe in, you’re going to keep doing the same bigoted and abusive things to your women.

Gotta admit, it’s a step in the right direction. Zimbabwe is relaxing the tight grip that the government holds on newspaper publication. This is a good thing, as I talked about earlier this week. If you allow free media, you allow a robust opposition, which in turn allows tyrannical leaders (like Mugabe) to be cast down. Let’s hope this gains some steam. Maybe they’ll start writing about how Robert Mugabe likes to sniff the underpants of old ladies and dresses up as a Japanese school girl on weekends.

This is what I like to see. A school is not living up to its educational standards? Shut it down. So what if it’s a religious school? They have standards to maintain, and are staunchly refusing to adhere to provincial requirements. You don’t want to play by the rules? Great. Shut your doors.

I’m sure you think you know where I’m going with this story, but actually I’m all for it. A lot of good things have come out of the Islamic world, and those things are part of our shared history as human people. We should be aware of both the good and the bad that comes out of religion. We can take the good stuff (art, music, culture, mathematics) and leave behind the stupid parts (YahwAlladdha). Put it all in museums, and let people see all sides of Islam.

So yeah, that was all stuff from this week alone (and by this week, I mean the last week of May, because I write these things way before they go live). There are a few other things (the mosque bombing in Lahore, the rise in internet banking in the developing world, rugby becoming an integrated sport in South Africa) that I am saving and hope to write about in context with some other things. The take-home message is that there’s a lot going on out there. Lots of it negative, some of it actually wonderfully positive. I don’t have the time to write about it all, and I suspect you don’t have the patience to read my take on everything even if I did.

P.S. Bonus points about for anyone who recognizes where the title of today’s post comes from.

P.P.S. Robert Mugabe lost an arm-wrestling contest to a 6 year-old, and has Hanson posters all over his bedroom. C’mon, pig fucker! Arrest me!